Want To Lose Weight, Eat Less
Many experts expound on importance of exercise for proper weight management and bemoan the loss of gym classes in schools as a cause of the obesity epidemic in the US.
1st Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move program focuses on exercise as a critical component in combating excess weight and obesity, but says little about the importance of eating less.
Yes, exercise has many benefits, but you cannot relying on it to control your weight.
1. It is not true that Americans are not listening to calls for more activity. From Ys 2001 to 2009, the percentage of people who are physically active increased. But so did the percentage of Americans who are obese. Physical activity does not prevent obesity.
Careful studies looked at the relationship between physical activity and fat mass in children, and found that being active is probably not the Key determinant in whether a child is at an unhealthy weight.
In the adult population, interventional studies have difficulty showing that a physically active person is less likely to gain excess weight than a sedentary person.
Studies on energy balance show that total energy expenditure and physical activity levels in developing and industrialized countries are similar, making activity and exercise unlikely to be the cause of differing obesity rates.
Exercise increases appetite.
When you burn off calories being active, your body reminds you to replace them.
A Y 2012 review of studies that looked at how people complied with exercise programs showed that over time, people wound up burning less energy with exercise than predicted and also increased their caloric intake.
When you lose weight, metabolism often slows. Many people believe that exercise can counter or even reverse that trend. But, the research shows that the resting metabolic rate in all dieters slows significantly, regardless of whether they exercise or not. This is why weight loss becomes hard over time.
Many studies that show that adding exercise to diets can be beneficial.
A Y 1999 review identified 3 Key meta-analyses and controlled trials that found statistically significant, but overall small, increases in weight loss with exercise.
Researchers note that an analysis published last year found that long term behavioral weight management programs that combine exercise with diet can lead to more sustained weight loss over a year than diet alone.
Over a 6-month period, though, adding exercise made no difference. Another recent review found similar results, with diet plus exercise performing better than diet alone, but without much of an absolute difference.
All of the interventions included dietary changes, and the added weight-loss benefit from activity was small.
Many people can find an hour or more in their day to drive to the gym, exercise and then clean up afterward, then complain that there is no time to cook or prepare a healthy, home cooked meal from non-processed food, Organic is best, avoiding all sugary drinks at all times.
So, if they spend 50% the time they do exercising cooking and eating good food they would most likely see better results.
If you want to lose weight, what is likely to succeed is gradual and sustainable change. It is not easy, but it works. And dietary change works better than exercise.
Many studies detail how physical activity can improve outcomes in musculoskeletal disorders, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, pulmonary diseases, neurological diseases and depression, and the evidence says that exercise improves outcomes in many areas of health.
But that does not apply to weight loss. The data does not support it. Exercise excites people more than eating less does.
A long time ago my father said, if you want to lose weight, “push away from the dining table.”
Eat healthy, Be healthy.
HeffX-LTN
Paul Ebeling
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